A new movie has hit select theaters, but you can see the movie now—either on DVD or through live streaming to your TV from Amazon or Video on Demand.

The movie: Occupy Unmasked. An expose on the Occupy Wall Street movement and mindset. A short summary of the film from the OccupyUnmasked.com website reads:

While the Liberal establishment and mainstream media portray the Occupy Wall Street movement as organic and nonviolent, Occupy Unmasked reveals the sinister, organized, and highly orchestrated nature of its leaders and their number one goal: Not just to change government, but to destroy it.

Led by hugely influential conservative visionary, the late Andrew Breitbart, Occupy Unmasked delves deep beneath the surface of the Occupy movement to show its dark anarchist roots. Behind the largely naïve students and legitimately concerned citizens looking for answers stand those who advocate the use of violence, black bloc operations, and intimidation as protest tactics – the same tactics they used during the anti-war protests of the 1960’s, anti-nuclear weapons protests of the 80’s, WTO protests of the 90’s, and the IMF protests of recent years.

Take a look at the Occupy Unmasked movie trailer:

From the tidbits I’ve seen and all I’ve heard, this is quite an eye-opening look at this chaotic movement, and one that needs to be seen by anyone who supports or holds romantic notions about Occupy Wall Street. (I’ll post my review later once I resolve my technical streaming issues and can finally view the film. I’m very excited to see it.)

Another good reason to support this movie: It’s a production of Citizens United. Yes, that Citizens United. The one that won the US Supreme Court free political speech case that President Barack Obama used to scold SCOTUS court justices at his State of the Union and whose efforts drive liberals into a frothing tizzy.

Occupy Wall Street likes to claim it is not a violent movement, and yet across the country, rapes and riots abound. The common response from Occupiers when arrests and property damage get reported is that the degenerates perpetrating the crimes were not a part of the movement. They just happened to be there.

In one of the latest examples of the violent bloodthirst that bubbles within the aimless, demand-less movement, this joker—Nkrumah Tinsley, 29—ranted about how they were going to “burn New York to the f***ing ground.” He then went on to rave about firebombing Macy’s department store with a Molotov Cocktail on November 17, the Occupy Wall Street two-month anniversary, which they have dubbed their Day of Action.

(Poor Macy’s. These loons are also targeting its Thanksgiving Day parade for massive trouble. Fortunately, if they carry through with their parade threats, they will give America and its children a real eyeful of the despicable nature of their movement and its pointless, misdirected, impotent “protest.”)

But look at all the Occupy people surrounding this idiot as he promotes anarchy and arson. Is there anyone appalled at such suggestion, or telling him how wrong that idea is? No. It’s smiles and approving nods all around.

Don’t let anyone tell you these criminals are anything but leaders and role models for Occupy Wall Street.

Ain’t no more talking, They got guns we got bodies. They got bricks we got rocks. Let’s see what they got.

[Young man in the background] They got missiles, we got bombs.

I want them…I want them to make that decision so they can see…in a few days you going to see what a molotov cocktail can do to Macy’s.

Says the man as he…signs an autograph?

In that same post, Verum asked:

Who the hell is this guy, to make what can only be described as a terrorist threat so brazenly with cameras rolling. I’d joke and say he must be a tea party infiltrator, but seriously, does anyone have any contacts with the NYPD or the DHS? This is way, way over the line.

In the linked NY Daily News article about the arrest, the paper provides evidence that Tinsley has been an Occupier for quite some time, as they note his October arrest during an Occupy protest where he punched a cop in the face and kicked him on the ground. So a known violent police attacker was welcomed back into their midst at Zuccotti Park, as they crowded around him and chanted his rants for him so everyone could hear them.

And then we have right-wing bloggers like VerumSerum doing what Occupy Wall Street won’t do: standing up for the 100% of all that is decent and honorable in America—and getting those that would firebomb it arrested instead of cheered.

Note: Isn’t it interesting that Occupy is calling their anniversary “Day of Action” when their first day of protest back on September 17 was called “Day of Rage.” Guess they are trying to hide their roots in a call for violent anger.

Last night, a reporter for the Contra Costa Times and Oakland Tribune photographed a surprising sign in the window of the Men’s Wearhouse Oakland store:

Photo by Matt O'Brien (@mattoyeah)

The sign reads “We stand with the 99%. Closed Wednesday November 2.”

That’s the day the Occupy Wall Street movement in Oakland called for a general strike.

Men’s Wearhouse is a publicly traded corporation (MW on the New York Stock Exchange) that takes in over $2 billion a year selling suits, with a net profit of over $67 million last year. So a company that caters to capitalists and businessmen chose to strike against its customers in support of the socialist, communist, anarchist movement that has violently clashed with police in Oakland and has had scores of reports of degenerate behavior across the country, ranging from numerous rapes to defecating on a police car.

The photo of the closed sign was tweeted last night, but nearly 24 hours later, Men’s Wearhouse has still not made a response to the numerous tweets sent to them. (The @Mens_Wearhouse twitter account says that it is staffed by four people. Surely one of them took notice of the hoopla their Oakland store had created.)

I contacted the corporate headquarters by email and phone to get an official response, and to learn how the store closing came about. However, I received no reply to my multiple inquiries.

Men’s Wearhouse does not have franchises. The Oakland store is corporate-owned. No one answered the phone at the Oakland store (store ID 2169, to the best of my knowledge) during business hours to give their side to the story either.

An Occupy Oakland representative, Tim Simons, said major corporations are the primary focus.

“This movement has never targeted small businesses,” he said. “It has always been explicitly against the largest corporations and banks.”

Simons conceded that some restaurants may have suffered a decline in business. But he argued that the effects aren’t monolithic.

“There are numerous businesses in downtown Oakland around the occupation,” Simons said. “Some are doing the best business they have ever done.”

It’s highly doubtful that Occupy Oakland’s hippie protesters have caused Men’s Wearhouse’s business to boom. Yet, these are the people with whom Men’s Wearhouse has chosen to stand, in opposition to their customers. On the bright side, should riots break out, the store won’t have to fear looting from the hippies and hipsters.

We closed our store near Oakland City Hall today, for one day, to express the company’s concern for the issue of wealth disparity in our country. The issue affects our employees and customers across the political spectrum.

UPDATE:
Men’s Wearhouse CEO George Zimmer is a confirmed liberal, putting his money where his mouth is. Since 1989, according to the website Newsmeat.com, he has made $304,000 in political contributions. $1,500 of it (less than 0.5%) went to Republicans.

RB of The Right Sphere reports that Men’s Wearhouse’s siding with the hippies, communists and anarchists of Occupy Wall Street and OccupyOakland didn’t save them from having their window smashed as their non-suit-wearing friends rioted on Wednesday night.

@PoliticalMath tweets with the picture: “Huh. Men’s Wearhouse took down the ‘We are the 99%’ sign.” I presume it was a joke to get people to look at the photo, but he has a point. Why would they take down the sign, when leaving it up would have shown their continued solidarity with rioting anti-capitalists?

Perhaps Men’s Wearhouse didn’t want to shame its uncouth, uncivilized comrades. Perhaps it wants to act as if it never cast its lot with the barbarians. Those people are gonna need a lot more than a new suit to take their place in polite society.

“We had people who were attempted to break into our building,” the landmark Rotunda Building on Frank Ogawa Plaza outside City Hall, Tagami said today. He grabbed a shotgun that he usually keeps at home, went down to the ground floor and “discouraged them,” he said.

No police were in sight, he said.

“Basically, people were pushing to get through the door,” he said. “I was standing there and they saw me there, and I lifted it – I didn’t point it – I just held it in my hands. And I just racked it, and they ran.”

Although they didn’t get inside the building – Tagami oversaw its $50 million renovation and has an office there – vandals did scrawl graffiti on the outside walls during the post-midnight riot that broke out after Occupy Oakland’s daylong general strike.

The Rotunda Building was far from the only victim. Graffiti was spray-painted on many buildings along Broadway from 14th to 16th streets, where masked vandals shattered windows, started fires and threw objects at police.

To steal a bit more from Political Math, he tweets: “If this is Krugman’s army, think of all the jobs they’re creating w/ all those broken windows!” So true. Think of all the Men’s Wearhouse suits that will now be able to be purchased due to the repair of that broken window. Oh, wait, no. Proper, non-Keynesian economics proves that broken window will reduce the number of suits that con now be purchased. Confused? This short little economic cartoon will enlighten you while entertaining you:

Pop Quiz! What item did the baker say he would have spent his money on if he didn’t have to waste it repairing his window? Oh, the irony of this pre-Occupy Oakland video tutorial!

When Mario Vargas Llosa won the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature, I was surprised to see conservative commentators giving his selection approving nods. I’d only read his entertaining, soap-opera-esque Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter and hadn’t considered its politics at the time. But if his novels have conservative themes, I’d sure like to read them. So I’ve begun to progress through his oeuvre.

Somewhere in some review, I read that his characters are secondary to the socioeconomic, political backdrops of the historical events of the period in which the characters are immersed. I don’t agree that they are secondary, but the real histories do add a sense of vibrancy and tension to the stories.

In Vargas Llosa’s novel The Bad Girl, which spans several decades and countries, his protagonist Ricardo finds himself amid the hippie scene in 1960s London, and it struck me as a contrast with today:

I liked Earl’s Court very much and fell in love with its fauna. The district breathed youth, music, lives lived without caution or calculation, great doses of ingenuousness, the desire to live for the day, removed from conventional morality and values, a search for pleasure that rejected the old bourgeois myths of happiness—money, power, family, position, social success—and found it in simple, passive forms of existence: music, artificial paradises, promiscuity, and an absolute lack of interest in the other problems that were shaking society. With their tranquil, peaceable hedonism, the hippies harmed no one, and they didn’t proselytize, didn’t want to convince or recruit people they had broken with in order to live their alternative lives: they wanted to be left in peace, absorbed in their frugal egotism and their psychedelic dream.

Reading that passage, my mind fast-forwarded to New York City, lower Manhattan, 2011, and the swarm of wannabe hippies at the Occupy Wall Street “protest,” proselytizing utter ignorance about the financial system and the economy, demanding handouts, defecating in the doorsteps of the surrounding good citizens, and drumming incessantly, noisily keeping the neighborhood children awake all night and distracted in school all day.

If only these hipsters “wanted to be left in peace, absorbed in their frugal egotism and their psychedelic dream.” But that’s the difference between these hipsters and old-school hippies. These people also reject conventional morality and values—but only because it’s too hard. They want stuff that others have, but don’t want to work for it, don’t want to start at the bottom and climb as they build experience and skill. They want the bourgeois money, power, position, social success; they just don’t see the need to earn it. It’s simply unfair if others have it, so they’re gonna pout and stamp their feet about it, and tweet their outrage from their iPads.

Another Vargas Llosa description pointed out, however, that the types of people drawn to 1960s London hippieville and 2011 NYC hipsterville are essentially the same:

Many hippies, perhaps the majority, came from the middle or upper class, and their rebellion was familial, directed against the well-regulated lives of their parents and what they considered the hypocrisy of puritanical customs and social façades behind which they hid their egotism, insular spirit, and lack of imagination. Their pacifism, naturism, vegetarianism, their eager search for a spiritual life that would give transcendence to their rejection of a materialist world corroded by class, social, and sexual prejudices, a world they wanted nothing to do with—this was sympathetic. But all of it was anarchic, thoughtless, without a center or direction, even without ideas, because the hippies—at least the ones I knew and observed up close—though they claimed to identify with the poetry of the beatniks (Allen Ginsberg gave a reading of his poems in Trafalgar Square in which he sang and performed Indian dances, and thousands of young people attended), in fact read very little or nothing at all. Their philosophy wasn’t based on thought and reason but on sentiment, on feeling.

All that dopey folly was tolerable enough, by virtue of being so inane it could be ignored. However, it came with a very dark side back then:

One morning I was in Juan’s pied-à-terre, dedicated to the prosaic task of ironing some shirts and undershorts I had just washed in the Earl’s Court Laundromat, when someone rang the doorbell. I opened and saw half a dozen boys with shaved heads, commando boots, short trousers, leather jackets with a military cut, some wearing crosses and combat medals on their chests. They asked about the Swag and Tails pub, which was just around the corner. They were the first skinheads I had seen. After that, these gangs would appear in the neighborhood from time to time, sometimes armed with clubs, and the benign hippies who spread their blankets on the sidewalks to sell handcrafted trinkets had to run, some with their babies in their arms, because the skinheads professed an obstinate hatred for them. It wasn’t only hatred for the way they lived but also class hatred, because these hoodlums, playing at being SS, came from working-class and marginal areas and embodied their own kind of rebellion. They became the shock troops of a tiny party, the racist National Front, which demanded the expulsion of blacks from England. Their idol was Enoch Powell, a conservative parliamentarian who, in a speech that caused an uproar, had prophesied in an apocalyptic manner that “rivers of blood would run in Great Britain” if there wasn’t a halt to immigration. The appearance of the skinheads had created a certain tension, and there were some acts of violence in the district, but they were isolated….

Is the reemergence of a skinhead movement likely to occur in 21st-century America with the Democratic Party and President Obama’s constant stoking of class warfare? Our top levels of government and media and entertainment now tell people they should look to scapegoat others for their lack of success instead of picking themselves up and attempting to succeed on their own. I fear this will not end well.

A revival of skinheads is only one group to worry about. The organizers and propellers of Occupy Wall Street are not dopey hippies. They are hard-core Marxists, communists, socials, anarchists. They don’t want to be left alone. They want to coopt our American way of life, our American dream. They want to finish the job that Barack Obama has so successfully begun. They don’t intend to fade away peacefully in a haze of pot smoke.

The neighborhood had filled with small cafes, vegetarian restaurants and houses where all the varieties of Indian tea were offered, staffed by hippie girls and boys who prepared the perfumed infusions in front of the patron. The hippies’ scorn for the industrial world had led them to revive handicrafts of every kind and to mythologize manual labor: they wove bags and made sandals, earrings, necklaces, tunics, headscarves, and pendants.

I’ll take hippies over hipsters and union thugs. We’ll know they’re winning the battle for control over Occupy Wall Street if there starts being more tables selling macrame potholders and tie-dye t-shirts than copies of the Daily Worker and the Communist Manifesto.